When the comet appeared a month or two ago," he added, "I sometimes
fancied that it might be come to carry him home, as a coach comes to
one's door for other visitors." Of all the graceful compliments in
Pope's poetry, none are more ardent or more obviously sincere than those
addressed to this "guide, philosopher, and friend." He delighted to bask
in the sunshine of the great man's presence. Writing to Swift in 1728,
he (Pope) says that he is holding the pen "for my Lord Bolingbroke," who
is reading your letter between two haycocks, with his attention
occasionally distracted by a threatening shower. Bolingbroke is acting
the temperate recluse, having nothing for dinner but mutton-broth, beans
and bacon, and a barndoor fowl. Whilst his lordship is running after a
cart, Pope snatches a moment to tell how the day before this noble
farmer had engaged a painter for 200_l._ to give the correct
agricultural air to his country hall by ornamenting it with trophies of
spades, rakes, and prongs. Pope saw that the zeal for retirement was not
free from affectation, but he sat at the teacher's feet with profound
belief in the value of the lessons which flowed from his lips.
The connexion was to bear remarkable fruit. Under the direction of
Bolingbroke, Pope resolved to compose a great philosophical poem. "Does
Pope talk to you," says Bolingbroke to Swift in 1731, "of the noble work
which, at my instigation, he has begun in such a manner that he must be
convinced by this time I judged better of his talents than he did?" And
Bolingbroke proceeds to describe the Essay on Man, of which it seems
that three (out of four) epistles were now finished.
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